Aug 27, 2004 20:50
I finished The Passion by Jeanette Winterson last night and I am still in a state of dreamy awe about it. It is just. Wow.
The book is only just over 150 pages but the language is so thick, so rich I had to read it slowly and savor every word. It’s like the darkest creamiest dark chocolate, it’s like pho ga with intertwining flavours and you can’t really tell what’s what ‘cause when they’re mixed together they turn into something else, something wonderful, but something else. And it’s wonderfully non-linear and told first person from two people’s perspectives at once (which might annoy some, but I love it. Love it) and written in little bits, little sections that sort of jump around a bit [which is how stories come out of my head, things never really connect, it’s just all this. Then that. Then that. And I look back later and they connect (sort of). Except this does connect.] It’s like what I want to write like (and if you look at that last sentence it looks like I never will, but…) I think I can. I could, if I could just manage to get myself to write anything at all. But from the first page of the book I new I’d love it and that doesn’t happen very often. And now I really really want to go to Venice.
And, to change the subject completely. When I was in grade school one of my teachers taught me a trick for spelling the word language. The first letter of each word in this sentence: Lets all not go under a giant elephant. spells language. Trouble is I can’t spell language without saying that sentence in my head (I had to just then even). It’s imprinted in my brain and if I haven't gotten it out after all these years, well I bet I never will. It's vaguely annoying and very amusing at the same time.
books,
writing,
language